


August 26th

by kaijawest



Series: A Work in Progress [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijawest/pseuds/kaijawest
Summary: Foggy looks after Matt on the anniversary of his father's death over the years with varying levels of success.
Series: A Work in Progress [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994044
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter occurs approximately between season one and two, second chapter is set during early season three and last chapter would fall some time after season three has finished.

“Yeah Foggy, I called Matt a few minutes ago about the Pitre case and he just didn’t sound good,” Karen says. “I mean I know its Sunday and all but he should have been able to tell me if he had what he needed for tomorrow but…”

Something niggles at the back to Foggy’s mind. He checks the calendar on his phone, sees the date and figures it out pretty quickly.

“Don’t worry about it, Karen. I’ll go over there and make sure everything’s fine. I mean, I’m sure its fine. You don’t need to go.”

“I don’t mind,” she offers, sounding like she means it. She probably doesn't.

“No no, its, uh, a thing. I mean not a thing. I’ll take care of this. I’ll bring the files over, I’m sure everything’s fine.” Foggy says hurriedly, knowing its not. How did he forget? This has literally happened every single year he’s known Matt without fail. He should have known this was coming, made some kind of preparations. At the very least, set a reminder on his phone. The anniversary falling on a Sunday threw him, that’s how he justifies it to himself.

“Um okay,” Karen says, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yup. Bright and squirrely!” Foggy says with more enthusiasm than he feels. He disconnects the call before Karen can get another word in. It was only just last Friday he’d told her the bullshit story about Matt’s drinking being the excuse for his recent flakiness. That had seemed like a lie when he’d said it but Foggy has more than a suspicion it might be true for today, that there was unlikely to be a more complicated answer for why Matt would look like hell tomorrow, if he even made it in to work.

“Matt?” Foggy calls as he opens the apartment door a little apprehensively. The key he had was supposed to be for emergencies only and while he had respected that before, he was fully ready to use it today. Oddly, he hadn’t needed to - the front door was surprisingly unlocked. “I’m coming in. There’s no sock on the door handle so I better not be surprised by any of your half naked lady friends.” Not that that would necessarily be so bad. Matt ALWAYS scored the hotties. But damn it could be awkward, hence the warning.

“Jus’ me,” he hears Matt say from inside.

Foggy closes and locks the door behind him cause yeah, not really pleased that was unlocked. He heads inside.

“Hey buddy,” he says, stepping into the living room and getting a look at Matt. He’s not really too hopeful with what he finds.

Matt is laying on the sofa, mostly empty bottle of scotch on the coffee table, glass in hand. His hair is a mess, he hasn’t shaved (‘But when does he ever except for court,’ Foggy thinks) and he’s still dressed in workout clothes. Foggy spots the bag of workout gear resting against the closet door, blocking it. Matt never leaves crap laying around on the floor if he can help it. The fact that its actively blocking the place where The Suit lives is not accidental Foggy thinks. But its what’s not locked hidden away in the closet that gets Foggy’s attention. Matt is curled up on the sofa with his dad’s old boxing robe. Something came out of its hiding place today but its not the Daredevil suit this time.

“You been alright today?” Foggy asks, despite the fact that the evidence in front of him screams no.

“Mmm, Foggy,” Matt says, pretty unhelpfully, but at least not in a negative way. He doesn’t sound unhappy to see his friend, and that’s something.

“Been busy?”

“Church, Fogwell’s, cemetery,” Matt helpfully explains his day with the least number of words possible. Foggy’s just happy to get a straight answer cause he severely doubts Matt can string much together right now.

Foggy takes a seat in one of the chairs opposite the couch. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember earlier in the day.”

“Is okay,” Matt slurs out. “You’re here now.” He somehow manages to take another drink laying down without spilling anything. “Lose the cap you gotta finish the bottle,” Matt says sounding both serious and quite wasted at the same time.

Foggy has literally never heard Matt use this rule/excuse before. They’ve done plenty of drinking over the years so it seems like if they’d ever had this rule Foggy should know about it. He snags the bottle off the coffee table before Matt has any chance to refill his glass. He’s not impressed to see another whiskey bottle, an empty one, on the kitchen counter when he goes to set the current one out of reach. He really hopes that one wasn’t full when Matt started. Wouldn’t surprise him if it had been though.  
“Did you eat today, Matty?” he calls out as he scopes out the food situation in the fridge. Its mostly barren as usual.

A mumbled, “Mmm Foggy,” is all the he gets in response.

“Not really an answer,” he says but doubts he’ll get one. “You want food?” he asks hopefully. The kitchen is clean, no dirty dishes to show whether Matt’s remembered to eat today. Of course that’s not really much of a sign. Matt is quite good at cleaning up after himself. Foggy doesn’t know if was his Dad or the nuns or who taught him to be tidy and not leave a mess and while he certainly was thankful for this when they shared living arrangements, it’s only a negative in times like now when a mess would be helpful to determine what’s going on.

“No,” Matt says and judging from his tone he means it.

“Right, cause why make this easy on yourself,” Foggy says out loud but not really directing his words on his friend. Foggy grabs a glass of water and heads back to the living room. “Please drink this,” he says holding out he glass in front of Matt. Matt half leavers himself up and accepts it. Apparently he’s thirsty cause he drains it immediately. Foggy doubts the earlier workout at Fogwell’s included adequate hydration.

“My fault,” Matt starts.

Foggy’s been through this more than enough times to know that’s its absolutely useless to argue with Matt when he’s like this. Anniversary of his father’s death always ends up the same way, with guilt and sadness. Every. Damned. Year. Without fail.

“Its really not but why take my word for it,” he says, feeling quite long suffering at the moment.

“It is. It was me. I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have said ANYTHING. He should be here. I did this. I should have…”

“What?” Foggy says. “What should you have done? Huh? You were a kid, Matt. None of this is on you no matter how many times you say it, not matter how many years you think it.”

“Mmm Foggy,” Matt says yet again. But this time he doesn’t sound as happy. He reaches for his glass on the coffee table, finds it quickly enough and drains it just as fast.  
“Okay,” Foggy says, grabbing the now empty tumbler from Matt’s slightly fumbly fingers. “More than enough now.”

“Mmm Foggy.”

Foggy just shakes his head and sets the empty glass down. He supposes he should be flattered. Matt’s thoroughly out of his head but definitely knows his friend is close and seems comfortable enough with the idea. 

“You ready to call it a night?”

“Mmm Foggy,” is all he gets in response as Matt curls up more on the sofa, snuggles into his father’s robe.

“Awesome. Who needs actual responses?” Foggy says, aloud to himself. He figures he should be glad that this year he’s not fighting off some random woman Matt picked up. While he’s pretty sure his friend is selective and careful the other 364 days a year, Foggy has had couple of years of dealing with his friend’s less than desirable pick ups to deal with. It’s bad enough keeping Matt in once piece on this day, he doesn’t need some random woman who doesn’t even know Matt trying to get involved again, thank you very much.

“You wanna go to bed Matt,” he says, not phrasing it as a question this time.

“Mmm okay,” Matt says, and surprisingly sits himself up. His eyes blink widely looking even more unfocussed than usual if that’s possible. They’re aimed in Foggy’s general direction but that’s about it.

“Okay,” he says, grabbing Matt’s by the wrists and pulling him up before he has a chance to change his mind.

Foggy steers Matt towards his bedroom. Matt thankfully goes willingly enough.

“He’s gone Foggy. They killed him,” Matt slurs as though he hasn’t repeated this information to Foggy a hundred times before, generally on the same day of the year, every year, since they met.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Matt. He is,” Foggy says, gently plopping his friend on the bed. Matt’s hit the point of limp noodle. Usually he’s a fun drunk, giggly and talkative drunk but not today. Never on this day.

Matt flops over bonelessly but somehow manages to get his head on a pillow. Foggy gets him settled under the covers, figures his work out clothes are comfy enough to sleep in and its definitely not worth the hassle to get Matt changed at this point. He literally tucks Matt in before stroking a hand through his hair.  
“I’m sorry this hurts you so much every year.” He doesn’t say it hurts him almost as badly to see Matt fall like this every year. Maybe it was naïve but he’d kinda hoped somehow the ‘other guy’ situation might have helped. All in all he knows its probably for the best, Matt’s not in a good state to be going out doing his Daredevil thing tonight.

Foggy arranges a couple pillows so Matt can’t easily roll over from where he’s curled up. They lost a friend in school to choking after heavy drinking and its stuck with him. He’s not about to let anything like that ever happen to Matt, not let anything he can prevent happen to his friend.  
Foggy makes his way back to the living room. He decides to grab a beer from the fridge. Looking at the whiskey bottles on the counter he’s only slightly relieved that this time he won’t actually have to lie to Karen tomorrow morning when she asks after Matt. He’ll probably make it in but he’ll be feeling like hell and likely look like it too for as much as he drank today. Foggy’s lie about Matt’s flakiness at work is, for one day anyway, going to be truth. All in all, he’d rather this not be the case and would of course prefer his partner be able to make it in to work fully functional.

He feels like a shitty friend as he sets an alarm on the cell phone calendar so he can hopefully get to Matt sooner and head off some of this misery next year.


	2. Chapter 2

Foggy was only half asleep when his phone went off. Not his normal alarm, it was too early for that. He rolled over to see what the notification was. It was his calendar and it simply said, “Go take care of Matt.” Yeah. Right. Matt who was buried under tonnes of rubble, never to be heard from again. When he’d set the reminder last year Foggy certainly hadn’t foreseen where things would be. He should erase it. What was the point now? His finger hovered over the button to delete the reminder. There was no reason for it now. Just yesterday he’d be trying to carefully and patiently convince Karen that Matt was gone and it was time to let things like his apartment go. And he believed that, right? Right?

Foggy didn’t delete the alarm, he manually reset it to go off again next year and tried not to think about why he did that. Tossing the phone back on the night table he rolled over and pretended to go back to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

The new offices of Nelson, Murdock and Page appeared at first glance to be a bit more upscale than the last one had. The common entry doors were shiny and new, the hallway floors were cleaner and the building better maintained. The neighbouring offices were respectable businesses. It looked good but underneath the whole building had a serious rodent infestation problem. Matt had warned them about this, fully aware how many extra, furry, non-paying tenants were located in the building but they’d collectively decided that overall, it was the lesser of two evils and took the building manager’s word for it that they were actively working on the problem. So it had come as no big surprise when they received notice that there would be heavy spraying and other methods/improvements going on in late August. The letter strongly suggested they set aside a few days and vacated the premises while work was completed. It had taken only $100 and a box of fancy donuts for Foggy to convince them to shift this work a few days to line up with his plans. It made for a perfect excuse for them to have to avoid the office and take a couple days off. Since apparently Matt hadn’t been planning to take the day off, Foggy decided a little engineering was required and was feeling quite pleased with himself with his preparations. 

Matt had been extra tightly wound for the past few months. He was trying so hard to carefully balance daytime lawyering and nighttime Daredeviling, and to keep from disappointing his friends. While he was beyond happy to have his best friend back from beyond the grave, Foggy honestly hadn’t seen Matt so habitually tense since their last semester of law school. He couldn’t remember the last time Matt had laughed or smiled without it seeming incredibly forced. It was just a matter of time before all that tension snapped. And considering Matt literally only allowed himself one day a year to let his emotional shit out, Foggy had the sense that the anniversary of his father’s death was gonna be a disaster. Matt just had so, so much baggage now. More than ever before. 

One time, when Foggy was ten, his parents had packed up the family and gone on a clichéd trip to Disney Land. For whatever stupid reason the thing that had stuck with Foggy the most of the whole trip was the baggage claim at JFK. He’d been fascinated by the long, winding conveyer belt of suitcases and bags. There were just so many that he couldn’t figure how anybody could find their own stuff in the mass of bags and he’d (needlessly) worried they’d never find their family’s things and they’d have to go home having cancelled the vacation. And now when he thought back to that long, slow moving conveyer belt of stuff he imagined that each one of those bags belonged to Matt, every one with a different tag: An old trunk labeled Dad, a fancy designer garment bag labelled Electra, a camouflaged backpack with a tag that said blindness, a black suitcase named Midland Circle. It went on and on, bag after bag, slowly snaking its way around the airport and every single bag belonged to Matt. 

And eventually all that shit was gonna have to be unpacked.

“Are you packing up your stuff?” he asked, leaning half into Matt’s office. “We are not setting foot in here tomorrow. Anything you leave behind is probably gonna end up smelling weird.”

Unsurprisingly Matt had not even started to gather up his things. He’d been dragging ass all day. Foggy didn’t call him out on it, not sure if this was lead up to tomorrow or tiredness from overdoing it last night. He’d just let it slide, not making any comments on Matt seemingly not accomplishing much all day, literally slouching around and generally avoiding conversation.

“Uh yeah, I’m gonna get right on that,” Matt reassured him with a fake smile and making no movements to back up his claim.

“Do you want me to help? Or … I could send Karen in?”

Matt gave a shake of his head and finally started shifting things around, powering down his laptop. “No no, I’ve got it.”

“I’m coming by your place tomorrow remember, bright a squirrely. I’ll bring the bagels, you better have coffee ready.”

“Yeah yeah, of course,” Matt replied, completely distracted, probably having no idea what he’d agreed to.

Foggy would bet $20 Matt will not have coffee ready.

………………

“I will have patience. I WILL have patience,” Foggy said to himself aloud, heading up the stairs to Matt’s apartment. “Its not his fault. He’s my best friend and I’m not going to hold anything he says today against him. He’s been trying really hard. I can do that same, dammit.”

The pep talk was helping calm his nerves. Mostly.

Foggy hesitated for only a moment before knocking on Matt’s door. He waited. And waited. There were no sounds coming from inside the apartment.

“No sock on the door,” he said to himself, mostly sure Matt wasn’t entertaining any of his lady friends. He’d walked in on things he wished he could burn out of his mind a couple times in the past. He was close to Matt but not so close that he ever, EVER wanted to walk in my him having sex again.

After the next knock went unanswered Foggy started feeling a little uneasy. What if Matt COULDN’T answer the door? What if he managed to get hurt again and was passed out in the living room bleeding to death? Again.  
“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” he mumbled to himself, digging out the spare key he had, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking slightly as he tried to shove the key into the lock.

Matt’s black Daredevil clothing and mask were strewn across the hallway and living room like he’d yanked off his clothes and just left them wherever they fell. Not a great sign. Matt didn’t like random tripping hazards left on the floor, never had. 

“Shit,” Foggy said softly to himself, nervously headed to the bedroom. The door was open. “Matt? You okay in there?”

There was a truly excessive amount of blankets on the bed and they were bunched up in one corner. Foggy recognized Matt’s heavy, winter duvet on top. Cocooned in a mass of fabric, with only the top of his head visible, Matt made a vaguely affirmative sound. 

“Did you get hurt last night?” Foggy asked really hoping the answer was no. “Its not cold in here … why are you buried in blankets?”

A sharp, barking cough came from the mass of bedding followed by a fairly pitiful moan.

“Are you sick, Matt?” That would definitely explain why he’d been moping around the office yesterday, looking miserable.

Messy bedhead hair and squinty, red eyes emerged from the cocoon to give a quick nod before disappearing to burrow farther into the bedding.

“I don’t suppose you have any cold pills or a thermometer around here?” Foggy asked doubtfully. 

The blanket cocoon moved a bit, probably a shake of the head 'no' but it was hard to tell.

Thankfully there was a CVS on this block. Shouldn’t take long to get what they needed.

“Okay stay there,” Foggy instructed, probably unnecessarily cause it didn’t seem like Matt had any intentions of getting up. “I need to go pick up some things. If you get hungry there’s bagels in the kitchen.”

A noise that was definitely not happy escaped the blanket heap. Foggy signed, shook his head and headed for the front door.

His day either just infinitely easier or a whole hell of a lot harder. Wait, this was Matt – it was definitely gonna get a lot harder.

……………….

“Poke your turtle head out for a sec,” Foggy asked.

“What?” Matt said, but did emerge slightly, though his nose and everything below remained buried.

“One oh one point seven degrees,” a robotic voice chimed.

“How’d you do that?” a muffled voice asked.

Foggy had sprung for a seriously fancy thermometer that not only said the reading aloud (cause yeah, kinda of a necessity when Matt couldn’t read a screen) and worked by scanning the forehead. Foggy was not gonna admit he enjoyed on some weird level shooting his friend in the head but hearing Matt’s confusion was oddly satisfying.

“The lady at the pharmacy recommended this for kids who are uncooperative. Can’t imagine why she’d think that might be the case.”

Matt was about to defend himself but all that came out was a ragged cough.

“You’re not injured under there, are you?”

“No.”

“For sure?” Foggy asked, not even caring if it came out patronizingly.

“Ugh yes!” Matt snapped, followed by more loud coughs.

“Okay okay, don’t have a conniption. I need you to come out of there and take some pills.”

“I don’t-“

Foggy aimed the thermometer and made to again read and robotically related Matt’s elevated temperature. He really shouldn’t find it this amusing to shoot Matt in the head. It was like having a Nerf gun but somehow even better.

“You need to take something and you need to get out of there. You’re just making yourself warmer under all that.”

“I’m cold,” Matt said, voice bordering on a whine. 

“The thermometer says you’re really not. I’ll turn off the air conditioning if you want but this duvet has got to go Matt,” Foggy said, yanking the heavy bedding away and tossing it on the floor in the corner of the room.

Matt made a decidedly pissy sound and burrowed into the remaining blankets.

“I’m going to have patience,” Foggy reminded himself quietly, not caring if Matt heard his reminded mutter. He left the bedroom to grab a glass of water and the cold and flu pills he’d picked up. Now that there wasn’t three feet of bedding covering him, Foggy could easily make out that Matt was shivering. The sooner he got some meds in him and better.

“Common, take these pills,” he said leaning closer, pills in one hand, glass in the other.

Matt huffed but finally emerged from the blankets. He looked like hot garbage: pale, shivering but with a bright flush on his cheeks, red, puffy eyes aimed more of less at Foggy.

“You know they make me feel weird,” Matt reminded him, hesitantly accepting the pills and water. “I really don’t like it.”

“Do you like feeling like this?”

Matt huffed again but obviously conceded the point, unceremoniously tossing back the pills.

Foggy was actually surprised at how little objection he was giving. Usually it took a bit of a fight to convince Matt to take anything stronger than Aspirin. He watched as another shiver went through Matt.

“What time is it?”

“Eight thirty. You have somewhere to be?”

“Uh, actually yeah, I’m meeting with my mo- Um, with Sister Maggie this morning.”

“You sure about that?” Foggy asked somewhat doubtfully. Matt did not look like he belonged anywhere other than in his bed right now.

Matt huffed yet again but it quickly devolved into a bit of a coughing fit. “Its fine, I’m fine,” he said, though it was convincing to exactly no one in the room. “I gotta grab a shower and head to the church.” Matt dragged himself out of bed, shivering all the way to the bathroom.

“Yeah, this is going to go great,” Foggy muttered to himself, headed for the kitchen to start coffee.

…………….

Surprisingly, when Matt joined Foggy in the kitchen a half hour later he actually looked quite a bit better. His suit and tie was clean and orderly, his hair well tamed. He hadn’t bothered to shave but that was normal. Red glasses easily covered his equally bloodshot red eyes. Nothing to be done for the paleness of his skin but at least the flush of fever seemed to be gone. Foggy noticed but pretended to ignore the way Matt’s hands shook slightly when he grabbed some coffee.

“I won’t be gone too long. Just an hour or so,” he said.

“I’ll come with you,” Foggy said, trying to make like it was no big deal. He had no intensions of letting Matt wander to the church by himself today, for a number of reasons.

“Yeah, um, okay,” Matt easily agreed, shot Foggy a small sincere grin. They both pretended to ignore the slight shiver that made its way through Matt’s body.

………………..

Foggy had of course met Sister Maggie several times. There were formal occasions, like the first time he’d been introduced at Father Lantom’s funeral. And there had been several less than formal meetings when Foggy had needed to help Matt get to the church when he’d be more than a little hurt. But oddly, Foggy realized, he’d never actually had a conversation with her. There always seemed to be something else going on, some level of Matt related drama that kept them from spending any time with each other. And Foggy really didn’t want to get in the way of whatever they were meeting up about today. Given the date and the serious look on Matt’s face he assumed it would be to talk about Jack Murdock. And Foggy really didn’t feel like his presence would be in any way helpful here. After dropping Matt off he quickly excused himself saying that his phone was ringing (it wasn’t) and pretended to look at the caller ID. 

“Oh jeez, would you look at that. It’s my mom. Sorry, its long distance and this is going to take awhile. Would you two excuse me?” he said before dashing out the door of the church and heading to a nearby coffee shop to give Matt and his mother some privacy.

When he returned to pick up Matt an hour later things were not exactly how he expected. Neither of them were in the kitchen where he’d left them and Foggy awkwardly asked another nun where they were, figuring the two had probably retreated to the church to pray or something but not really feeling comfortable enough to wander around looking. Surprisingly, the young nun had taken him back into what appeared to be living quarters. She motioned to a closed door and Foggy hesitantly knocked lightly.

“Its open,” he heard Sister Maggie say quietly from inside. Foggy opened the door apprehensively. 

Matt was dead asleep on the narrow bed that must have been Sister Maggie’s. Somebody, more likely Maggie than Matt, had the good sense to loosen his tie and open the top couple buttons of his shirt, undo the tight buttons at his wrists. His suit jacket was draped over the end of the bed. Maggie was perched at the head of the bed, gently petting Matt’s hair. Foggy immediately felt like he was intruding and started to back out of the room, apologizing.

“It’s alright, Foggy,” Sister Maggie said quietly, clearly not upset by his presence. “Matt just got a little upset earlier. He wasn’t feeling well. He agreed to lay down for a bit.”

For a fleeting moment Foggy wanted to ask he what she’d said to get him upset but he stamped down the surge of protectiveness. He didn’t honestly think Sister Maggie had purposely intended to get Matt riled up. Sure she actively challenged Matt on a frequent basis, but to purposely emotionally upset him today? Not a chance.

“Let’s let him rest,” she said, getting up and brushing past Foggy out the door. “Come with me.”

Her tone made it clear it wasn’t a request but Foggy found he didn’t mind and followed her down the hall. There was a sternness about the nun and Foggy really did not want to butt heads with her. He wasn’t exactly intimidated by this tiny woman, but okay yeah, maybe he kind of was.

They ended up in the main church. 

Foggy felt awkward. He wasn’t religious, his family barely was. They were the type to show up to church only on Easter and Christmas and even then it wasn’t consistent year to year. He said as much to Maggie as they walked side by side down the aisle.

“You know a lot of people who come here don’t consider themselves religious, Foggy. They come here for a number of reasons. And it’s often not for themselves.”

She took a seat at a pew about halfway from the front. Foggy followed her lead, sliding in beside her.

“A lot of people come here to talk to God on behalf of their friends and their family. And God doesn’t care that they don’t show up here every Sunday. He listens all the same.”

Foggy nodded, not really sure what he was supposed to say. 

“Give me five minutes to make us coffee? Then join me in the kitchen?”

“Uh sure,” Foggy agreed as she slipped past him and headed down the aisle the way they’d come.

Foggy looked around, taking in the place. There were a few parishioners spread out in other pews. They all looked very seriously wrapped up in prayer or thoughts. Maybe they didn’t all belong to the church though. Sister Maggie did say people came here who weren’t necessarily religious. Maybe he wasn’t invading as much as he’d thought. It seemed inappropriate to take out his phone to kill time. With no other real option Foggy decided maybe it couldn’t hurt to try something out. He clasped his hands and bowed his head.

“So I know you’re Matt’s God. And I can’t ask you for things for myself but maybe for him? Cause he really, really believes in you and you’re important to him. So if you could just make today easier for him somehow? He has so much hurt and he can’t let it out. Um, not in any kind of good way anyhow,” Foggy specified. He didn’t even want to think how Matt reconciled the violence of Daredevil with God and the church and all that stuff. “I just want him to feel better. He’s trying so hard and I can’t do anything to make it better.” Even as he said it Foggy know this wasn’t entirely accurate. He tried to help Matt, tried every way he knew how but so often it didn’t seem like he was helping his friend successfully. “I really try hard to help him but I just don’t know how sometimes. And a lot of the time it doesn’t seem like I’m helping at all. Although I guess talking to you is one way I’ve never tried so, um, yeah. So for him, would you please make things easier? Make him hurt just a little less? Please?” 

Foggy started to get up then plopped down, resumed the praying position as well as he knew. “Amen,” he said, unsure if prayer worked without the magic word but not willing to risk it.

As he made his way down the aisle, figuring enough time had passed, Foggy tried to figure how on earth Sister Maggie had managed to so easily convince him to do that. He couldn’t remember ever having prayed in his whole life, but there he was, asking for things on Matt’s behalf. Maybe there really wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to try to help his friend.

……………………

Foggy ducked into the kitchen, still thoroughly confused what had just happened. Maggie smiled at him, and something in her look told him she knew exactly what she’d started. But she didn’t say a word about it. Her expression bordered on smug though and Foggy was more than familiar with that look. Definitely no DNA test needed, clearly this was Matt’s family.

“I’ve been told I make excellent coffee,” she said, handing him a mug and leading him to the large, scarred table at the centre of the room. “Not by Matthew of course, but others have mentioned it.”

Foggy took a large gulp and promptly choked. There was a least two shots of whiskey in there and he was definitely not expecting that. Spluttering but really not wanting to offend her, “Wasn’t expecting that,” he explained.

“You don’t like whiskey?” she asked and had the good grace to look like she might actually be sorry.

“No, no I do, its good,” he said, taking a more careful sip. ‘It’s also 11 am on a Tuesday in a church so I was definitely not expecting that,’ he added mentally.

Sister Maggie nodded, not pursuing it any further. “So when did Matthew start getting sick? His lungs do not sound good.”

“Uh just yesterday. He wasn’t really going at full speed at work and then when I got to his place this morning he was … not doing great.”

“And you’ll take him to the doctor if he gets worse?” she asked. It was phrased as a question but somehow he knew it wasn’t. He got the distinct impression it was an order.

Foggy tried not to bristle and point out that Matt was an adult and could take his own self to the doctor. Then he remembered that Matt often had the self preservation instincts of a lemming and decided not to mention it.

“I have personally dragged his ass there more than once under similar circumstances.” It had been quite a few years but was the truth.

“Good,” She said with an air of finality. “He’s very fortunate to have you in his life.”

Foggy gave a small grin, not sure what to say to that. He ran his finger over a deep groove in the worn table. Sister Maggie quickly reached across the table and grabbed his hand before Foggy had a chance to move. 

“He thinks the world of you you know,” She looked at him intensely and Foggy tried very hard not to squirm. “I think not having you around is a big part of why he struggled so much before.”

She didn’t need to specify she was talking about the months after the Midland Circle mess. Foggy knew exactly when she was referring to. He still had a million questions about that time and wished he felt comfortable enough to ask her some of them. Maybe some day, eventually.

“I’m always there … as much as he’ll let me,” Foggy said, trying not to let frustration colour the words. 

“I know he doesn’t make it easy,” she acknowledged. 

Foggy snorted at her understatement. “Yeah well, Sister Maggie-“

“Maggie,” she corrected.

“Maggie,” Foggy said, happy to do away with any of the awkwardness and formality. “But he’s worth it.”

“I’m glad you think so. And you’re right of course,” she said. Foggy could see the shift in her eyes, a concerned mother instantly swapped out for the steely nun he’d encountered all the times before. “Now,” she said, standing up. “Let’s go see how my difficult, pain the ass son is doing.”

Matt was definitely not resting comfortably when they arrived back at Maggie’s room. Soft moans accompanied his restless movements on the bed. Twitching and shuddering he looked totally miserable. His forehead was covered in sweat, hair damp.

“Damn,” Foggy and Maggie muttered at the same time, exchanging a look. 

Maggie sat down gently at the head of the bed, fingers combing softly through his hair, trying to soothe him but carefully wake Matt up at the same time.

“If he’s having a nightmare you gonna want to stay out of swinging range,” he warned her, both not wanting her to get hurt and really not wanting to deal with any aftermath of Matt blaming himself for injuring her. “Sometimes he comes up fighting.”

“I’m aware,” Maggie said, tone one of resignation. She had carefully placed herself up by his head just out of reach for a reason. “That’s new. When he was a boy-“ Maggie cut herself off, sensing he was waking. Foggy noticed the way she snatched her hand back the moment Matt seemed to becoming aware.

“Are you awake now?” she asked, voice no longer soft.

“Where am I? What’s…” Matt confusedly mumbled.

“You fell asleep, Matthew. Now do you want to stay here or do you want to go home with Foggy?” her voice clear and almost sharp. The way she was around him now that he was awake was so noticeably different Foggy was almost taken aback. But come to think about it, this was the way she always seemed to talk to him, a sort of fond exasperation in her tone. “Matthew!”

“Yeah yeah, I uh,” Matt struggled to get himself to respond properly. “I wanna go home with Foggy.”

“Good. I have my hands full here without you loafing about. Up you get.”

Matt sat up, shivering slightly, still looking confused and half asleep. Maggie lifted his glasses off the nightstand, placed them in his hand. Foggy grabbed Matt’s suit jacket and helped him get it on, snagging Matt’s cane that was tucked by the door, handing it over once Matt seemed mostly steady on his feet.

Matt turned back to address his mom. “I wanted to talk about … I’m sorry I got upset … I,” Matt inelegantly stumbled over his words.

“Not today,” Maggie cut him off. “You come back when you’re feeling better and we can talk then. We’ll talk about anything you want,” Maggie said, emphasizing the anything. Foggy realized it was probably to tell him the door for their conversation wasn’t opened only one day a year, despite his arbitrary rules.

Matt pulled Maggie into a hug and Foggy did not miss the look of shock on her face. He did not think they had that kind of easy, physical relationship and the look on her face totally confirmed his suspicions. He wondered when the last time Matt had hugged her was and thought the answer may well be never. Matt sniffled and finally let go, turning on his heel and leaving without another word. Maggie still looked completely stunned.

“Well,” Foggy started, hoping to cut through the nervous tension. “Thanks for the coffee Maggie,” he said and headed after Matt.

“Wait,” Maggie said. She dug into the dress pocket. “If you can’t get him to eat properly while he’s sick he will at least eat these,” she said, handing over a Ziploc baggie full of small, obviously homemade cookies. “Come by for coffee again, Foggy, with or without Matthew,” she said, sounding very sincere. “Now go after him before he wanders into traffic.”

Stuffing the cookies into his jacket pocket, Foggy spared a moment to be thankful for his very uncomplicated and easy relationship with his own mom as he hurried to catch up to Matt. 

……………..

They’d grabbed a taxi back to Matt’s place. It wasn’t far but Matt did not look like he needed to be walking back. He very much looked like he needed to be curled up in bed. Foggy didn’t bug him when he quickly nodded off in the back of the cab, though it wasn’t ideal since he’d just have to wake him up again in a few minutes given the short ride. 

Everything seemed fine until suddenly it really, really wasn’t.

Somebody cut off the cab, resulting in blaring horns and some minor swerving. Matt startled awake, seemed to figure where he was and immediately went into full blown panic.

“No no no no no,” he said, scrambling and pawing madly at the door handle. Unable to get the door open he started hyperventilating and shaking. 

“Matt?” Foggy said, not sure how in a span of 10 seconds Matt had started completely coming apart at the seems.

“Need to get out. NEED TO GET OUT!” Matt didn’t even seem to be saying it to him, didn’t really seem to even notice Foggy beside him. He was back to scrambling madly at the door.

“You need to pull over. NOW!” Foggy barked at the driver who seemed oblivious to the panic occurring in his back seat. Foggy tossed some bills over the seat and rushed out the door hoping to get around the side before Matt jumped out blindly into traffic. Unsurprisingly when he opened the door Matt exploded out and Foggy had to bodily grab him and steer him away from the next lane of moving cars, maneuvering him toward the sidewalk. He shoved Matt down to lean/sit on a decorative stone planter.

“What the fuck Matt!” he snapped and immediately regretted yelling when Matt flinched hard. He was shaking and gulping air like he was trying not to drown. Unfortunately this set off a long and painful sounding round of coughing. Matt was bent double, gasping and shuddering, desperately trying to get enough air into his lungs. Suddenly he started throwing up, although it was more dry heaving than anything else. Foggy grabbed him from behind, bear hugging him around the chest, half afraid Matt was about to face plant into the street. He kept holding on, feeling his distressed friend shake under his arms. Once Matt was getting enough air in Foggy could hear and feel Matt sobbing against him.

What in the hell? Foggy thought. This was way, way out of character for Matt, difficult day or not. He was actually considering calling for an ambulance when Matt finally started calming down. Eventually he pulled against Foggy’s iron grip around his chest. Foggy hesitantly let go.

“What in the hell was that all about?” he asked.

“Please don’t make me talk about this right now,” Matt asked quietly, sniffling and shivering.

Foggy would give him points for not outright lying and minimizing whatever just went down. Pressing him would probably be counter productive to getting him home in one piece at this point but there was no way he was letting that go. “Yeah, okay, we don’t need to talk about that right now. Can we walk home or you need a little longer?”

“I can walk now,” Matt said, mostly steadily. “I lost my cane,” he admitted sheepishly. They’d both been too distracted to realize it was abandoned in the back of the taxi.

“Good thing you have a seeing eye Foggy, isn’t it?” he said, nudging Matt with his elbow.

“Good thing,” Matt agreed, shivering as he clamped onto Foggy’s arm like a lifeline. Under the normal run of things Foggy knew Matt was fine to make his way home in his neighbourhood without his cane. Right now he didn’t trust his friend to make it to the end of the block on his own.

………………

They made it to the apartment without further incident. Matt was totally calmed down from whatever that mess was in the taxi but the panic attack seemed to have drained whatever energy had been keeping him going. He stumbled into the bedroom, shedding his suit as he went. Foggy watched as he flopped into his bed and burrowed under the covers, not saying a word. 

“Don’t put that duvet back on the bed. You’ll overheat,” he warned Matt. No acknowledgement came from the bed but the blankets continued to vibrate with Matt’s shaking. Foggy decided to give him some space but would check on him in a half hour, see how his temperature was.

As it turned out it was only about twenty minutes later that Matt started moaning in his sleep. Foggy peered in from the doorway to see him tossing and turning. He was coughing in his sleep and Foggy was pretty sure it wasn’t his imagination that those coughs sound deeper and wetter than before. When Matt started mumbling and sounding really upset Foggy decided he definitely had to wake him up. 

“Matt!” he said loudly from the doorway. No response. 

Not wanting to earn himself a black eye, Foggy retrieved a broom and warily poked Matt’s shoulder from a safe distance. Maybe Maggie was braver than he was or maybe she knew Matt was less likely to take a swing as his mom softly petting his hair but Foggy was not taking any chances. He tried really hard not to imagine holding a chair in front of himself like a lion tamer as he carefully nudged Matt with the broom handle. And for a moment he felt completely vindicated when Matt woke up growling, snatched the broom out of his hands and promptly snapped the wooden broom handle in two like it was nothing.

“Whoa,” Foggy said aloud, watching Matt heaving in breaths, clutching half’s of the busted broom like impromptu weapons. Tense and shirtless, sweating, shaking and growling, Matt was really, really scary. Foggy got the distinct impression that that was not his best friend Matt in the bed looking ready to tear him in two but a really dangerous Daredevil who was spoiling for a fight. Foggy took a couple involuntary steps backwards towards the doorway. He’d been plenty sacred FOR Matt over the years but this was, as far as he could remember, the first time he’d be actually scared OF Matt. 

“Matt?” he said, not surprised to hear his voice shake. He didn’t even want to get Matt’s attention on him but he had to get him to snap out of it. “You’re kind scaring me right now, buddy.”

Matt turned his head towards Foggy, teeth barred, red eyes for once pointed directly at him. Foggy tried really hard to not pee himself but he felt like prey on some instinctual level. For a moment they were locked like that, Foggy didn’t even dare to breathe.

Suddenly a completely inane ringtone began playing from the phone in Foggy’s pocket. The chirpy electronic music cut through the tension and Matt shook his head, looked down, thoroughly confused by the broken broom in his hands. Foggy scrambled out the bedroom, answering the phone without even looking to see who it was, just so damned thankful for the interruption.

“Hi Foggy,” Karen said happily. “Just thought I’d call and see how your 'boys day' is going?” her tone light and teasing. “Are you giving each other pedicures and watching rom-coms?”

Foggy swallowed and decided not to answer in anyway truthfully. ‘Matt’s sick as a dog, his mom somehow convinced me to pray for him, he had a full blown panic attack over who knows what and I’m pretty sure I finally met Daredevil and I’m also pretty sure he was considering killing me a moment ago, and how are you?’ Foggy swallowed down that response. “No, we’re doing facials and gossiping about the cute pizza delivery boy, if you must know,” he said jokingly, seriously impressed his voice held steady.

“Right, of course,” Karen laughed. “So anyway, the reason I’m calling is they said the spraying and trap setting or whatever at the office is going to take an extra day. They said not to come back til Friday. And yes, cause I’m awesome I got them to drop the rent by half for the month for the interruption to business. I called the phone company and they’ll keep forwarding the office calls to my cell for another day.”

“That’s great Karen,” Foggy said, as warmly as he could manage. He creeped back towards the bedroom, nervously peering inside. “I’ll tell Matt you said hi.”

“Have fun you two!” Karen said, he could hear the smile in her voice. God knows what she thought they were getting up to.

“Okay bye!” Foggy responded, voice chipper, despite the look of fear and dread on his face. Very, very slowly he walked into the bedroom, afraid of who was in there.

“Foggy? What happened to my broom?” Matt asked sounding equal parts confused and worried, broken broom sitting in his lap. The shivering was back and he looked wide eyed and as scared as Foggy felt. As Foggy got closer Matt clearly sensed something was really off. “What’s the matter Foggy, what’s wrong?”

Trying really hard to stop his own shaking Foggy took a deep breath. He was 99% sure that was just normal, not threatening, not scary Matt in the bed now. 

“So, you kinda killed a broom, “ Foggy said as though it was in any way an adequate explanation. 

“Why’re you so scared?” Matt asked. He sounded heartbroken and Foggy thought maybe Matt had figured what scared the crap out of him.

“We don’t need to talk about that right now,” Foggy said, sweeping the issue under the rug, though obviously not with THAT broom. If Matt got to avoid talking about the whole Taxi panic then Foggy was taking this escape in return. “You think I can check your temperature now?”

Matt looked less than convinced but agreed. “Yeah, sure, go get your toy,” he said with a forced grin. 

Foggy ducked out and as he retrieved the thermometer did his damnedest to shove down any residual fear and get his heart to stop hammering away in his chest.

“One oh three point eight,” the electronic voice chimed. Not good.

“Okay Matt, you have a choice here. Take a nice relaxing bath to get this temperature slowly down OR I shove you into a cold shower OR I haul your ass to the hospital.”

“Pretty sure you’re overreacting,” Matt said. “But I do feel like total crap,” he conceded, wiping the sweat off his forehead, shivering. 

“So?”

“Bath.”

After getting Matt settled into a coolish bath, Foggy got him more pills. He choose the nighttime ones this go round, giving zero fucks about the time of day, just seeing there was more drugs in the green nighttime pills than the orange day ones. It wasn’t like Matt could see the colour difference to know and Foggy figured given his temperature he could use all the help he could get. He wasn’t looking forward to Matt’s complaints that the pills made he feel “wonky” cause Foggy was pretty sure he had that discussion to look forward to.

Of course Matt’s pretentious apartment has an equally pretentious bathtub. It was a vintage claw foot tub, hilariously oversized for the size of the room. Foggy planted himself against the opposite wall so they were kind of facing each other. He couldn’t help but notice Matt had picked up a few new and rather painful looking scars. They were new enough to still be pink and he tried not to stare at the one on Matt’s upper chest, not far from his collar bone. Foggy wasn’t a medical person but somehow he could tell that one had been deep. He was somewhere between wanting to know what had caused that kind of damage and being way to horrified to hear the details.

Matt’s brain was apparently halfway cooked, skittering from topic to topic as they chatted. Foggy finally risked steering Matt to tell him some good memories about his time growing up with his dad. Thankfully it hadn’t upset Matt, had been a bit of a risk to bring it up. But Matt had happily related stories from his time growing up with his dad. He veered off a couple times to semi related memories about things he’d seen but could still recall, albeit a bit hazily, from when he’d still had vision. It was mostly objects that had been in his house he remembered but it was interesting to hear him describe things in terms of colour and shape and relation to each other and Foggy really couldn’t think of another time Matt had even attempted to verbalize what visual memory he still had.

And it had all been going fine til Matt’s slightly scrambled brain took a hard left turn into something entirely different.

“And he said to me, “Feel how its already closed. Handcuffs can’t get on you if they’re already closed, right?” and I believed him. I guess I must have been a pretty stupid kid and I didn’t know better. Wasn’t something I really knew about. So I felt them and they were really cold metal but they were already closed so I thought it was alright. And then he pushed them against my wrist and I felt how they flip around even when they’re closed, how they grab you and tighten. And he put the one on me and the other on the door handle and then he left. And I was stuck and I was so, so mad. I don’t know if I was more mad at him for tricking me or at myself being so stupid and not knowing how they worked. So I was stuck there and he left and I just remember shaking I was so angry. Um, he did come back eventually but when I begged him to take them off he threw me the key and left.”

“That doesn’t really fit with all the other stuff you told me about you dad, Matt,” Foggy pointed out. He wasn’t sure where this was coming from.

“Oh no, dad would never,” Matt corrected quickly. “That was Stick. Third day I knew him. I guess I can’t fault him. I mean I definitely learned my lesson, never ended up in handcuffs again. Not any that I didn’t want to be anyway,” Matt finished, waggling his eyebrow suggestively.

They’d never really talked about Stick, not any specifics anyway. “That’s messed up Matt.”

“Yeah, maybe was,” he said, something in his voice made it sound like he’d never even thought that way before, like this was the first time he’d even considered it.

………………….

“One oh one point two,” the thermometer chimed.

“Better,” Foggy remarked. 

“I don’t feel better,” Matt remarked miserably. “Kinda dizzy actually.”

Here it comes, Foggy warned himself. Matt was about to start in on how the cold pills were messing him up. In fairness, they probably were. Whatever, Foggy justified to himself, they were a necessary evil at the moment.

“Are you going to barf?”

“Not that dizzy. Thankfully.”

Matt was curled up on the couch beside Foggy. Despite several warnings not to put on warm clothes, Matt had selected a thick hoodie, sweat pants and those stupid fuzzy socks of his. He was still shivering and periodically complaining about feeling cold despite the fact that the apartment was downright stuffy with the air turned off. Foggy had had to put his foot down when Matt tried to drag his big down duvet out into the living room.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Ugh, nothing,” Matt said, screwing up his face as though the very thought was revolting.

“Well I’m getting Thai from your favorite place,” he said, whipping out his phone. “And you can just be hungry and jealous while I eat.”

“Have at it,” Matt said dismissively, rubbing his fuzzy socked feet together. 

Foggy pretended not to care, placing their regular order and at the last minute deciding to double it. Matt lived on take out left overs. If he didn’t eat it today there was a good chance he’d inhale it when he felt better.  
Though he was loath to bring the subject up, Foggy mentioned, “You know you’d feel less weird from those cold pills if they weren’t on a empty stomach.”

Matt blinked at him, apparently thinking this over. “Okay fine. Are there still bagels?”

“You know it,” Foggy said, happily, retrieving the bag he’d brought that morning. “Toasted?”

“Yeah, please.”

As soon as he was in the kitchen he spied Matt trying to sneak the blanket off the back of the couch as though Foggy wouldn’t be able to see it. Matt damn well knew the couch was visible from the kitchen.

“Ah AH, no!” Foggy admonished like Matt was a bad puppy. Matt put the throw back but had the good grace to at least look guilty. Foggy could hear him grumbling about being cold for the millionth time today.

“You are not cold! You body is screwed up right now. You just THINK you’re cold. You’re cooking, Matt,” he explained yet again, hoping repetition would maybe, somehow get the message through his thick skull. The end of his explanation was cut off by a long and gross sounding coughing fit. By the end of it Matt was red-faced and gasping. He was rubbing at his chest miserably and Foggy didn’t doubt that that was as painful as it sounded.

“I don’t like how that sounds.”

“Neither do I,” Matt agreed.

“Your mom doesn’t think it sounds good either.”

“You talked to my mom?”

“Yeah, this morning, of course.”

“Oh.”

“Please tell me you haven’t forgotten we went to see her this morning,” Foggy said. He stated it jokingly but was getting increasingly worried Matt’s brain was heating to the point of stupidity. Or damage.  
“No, I remember,” he assured Foggy. “Not really well.”

“Probably cause you were asleep most of the time you were there,” Foggy reminded him, passing the toasted bagel.

“I really wanted to talk to her about my Dad. We’ve never really talked about him. Like ever. I wanted her to tell me about him,” Matt sounded very disappointed, like maybe he thought that was his one chance to discuss it and he’d missed out.

“Matt,” Foggy started, sensing for the moment at least, Matt was open to what he was about to say. “You know you CAN talk about your dad the other 364 days a year.”

“I know,” Matt said, sounding a little defensive.

“You’re mom’s not making these rules. YOU are,” he said, really hoping Matt might start to realize he didn’t actually have to shove all his grief into one day of the year. He could tell the message was getting through loud and clear as Matt squirmed and took a deep breath to defend himself. A knock at the door saved them both from discussing it further.

“Thai,” Matt said.

“And you couldn’t have warned me thirty seconds ago so I could have my wallet out,” Foggy huffed, heading to the door. He honestly couldn’t have cared less but it was weird not to get advanced notice from Matt. He’d gotten used to the convenience of having a warning before these things. 

“Maybe I couldn’t smell him coming over these cold pills,” Matt bitched quietly.

“If you touch that throw so help me... ” Foggy warned as he headed down the hallway.

Glancing back he watched as Matt pulled his hand away from the blanket, tucked it into the pocket of his hoodie.

………………….

Matt lost the battle against the cold pills or the fever shortly after the food had arrived. Foggy had put the extra food into the fridge and didn’t bother waking him, reasonably confident he wouldn’t eat it just then anyway. He did a bit of actual work, thankful he’d brought his laptop along. He’d tried using Matt’s computer before since they were generally working on the same cases. The computer was a nightmare to navigate given all the accessibility software and settings Matt had tweaked and Foggy had long since decided to never try working on it ever again. 

Matt’s noisy breathing was only somewhat distracting. His lungs sounded like they were filling up with garbage. Foggy was just about through what he’d set aside to deal with when Matt coughed himself awake.

“Okay?” he asked as Matt blinked, seeming confused.

“Uhh, I feel weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Wonky.”

“That’s a helpful description,” Foggy said, getting up to retrieve the thermometer.

“I can’t see right,” Matt said, as if that clarified things at all. “I can’t hear right either so maybe that’s why.”

“Couldn’t tell ya,” Foggy said, not even trying to get Matt to explain it so he understood. It was 100% unnecessary but he pretended to whip the thermometer out of a holster at his hip, line up his shot and fire right at Matt’s forehead. Matt could apparently tell what he was doing and smiled goofily at Foggy’s antics.

“One hundred and two point seven.”

“Damn. Those pills are not doing much,” Foggy remarked.

“They’re doing plenty,” Matt pointed out. “I feel all screwed up.”

“You know I’m gonna drag you to a clinic in the morning if you’re not doing better,” Foggy warned him.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Matt said. “Probably should go,” he admitted, rubbing his chest. 

That was a bit worrying. Mr. “I’m fine!” was not in the habit of admitting weakness so readily.

Foggy checked the time and it was a bit late but surely there would still be some after hours clinics open now.

“Do you need to go tonight?” he asked, hoping Matt would be honest with him. If those lungs sounded gross to Foggy’s normal ears he didn’t even want to think what kinds of insight Matt probably had.

“No, I’m fine for tonight. Really. But I should probably get it checked out tomorrow morning.” He cocked his head at Foggy, reading something off him.

“You’re finally growing up. I can’t believe you’re actually taking responsibility for yourself,” Foggy said, jokingly playing the proud parent when he damned well meant every word of it.

“Screw off,” Matt said, smiling and chucking a throw pillow at Foggy’s head.

Foggy plopped back into his spot just as Matt uncurled from his cozy position to stretch out his left leg, little noise of discomfort sneaking out. This was a constant thing Foggy couldn’t help but notice. Pretty much any time Matt stayed static in one position too long he had to stretch that leg out and more often that not his face betrayed him. While the signs were subtle clearly something was bothering him and had been for quite some time. Foggy had never commented on it but the leg stretch happened everywhere: from times like this when Matt was cozied up on his couch to when he was tense as hell in court.

“Did you pull something last night?” Foggy asked, knowing full well this was not a recent issue. But Matt was being quite open today and if he didn’t push Foggy thought maybe Matt would offer up an explanation on his own.

“No. I uh,” he signed, obviously making a decision to come clean. “I hurt my hip, really badly at Midland Circle. Its not been the same ever since,” he admitted, hand rubbing at the offending hip like he could smooth out the pain.

“Is it getting better?” Foggy asked hopefully.

“No,” Matt admitted sounding both frustrated and resigned. “I guess this is as good as its ever going to be. I can do what I need to. Well most of it anyway but its not going to be as good as it was.”

It was probably the most Matt had explicitly ever said about the damage he’d taken that night. Foggy knew there were some emotional scars Matt carried. Seems like that wasn’t all. Of course there were consequences to being buried under a falling building. He wisely let it be and didn’t ask any more about it. He thought maybe he’d ask Maggie if they ended up having coffee again some time.

………………..

“I wanna go to the cemetery.”

It was dark out, Matt was still complaining about feeling dizzy and “wonky” and his fever had not let up.

“I really don’t want to take you out like this,” Foggy admitted. ‘Particularly when I can’t shove you in a cab if you crap out on me,’ he added in his head.

“I can go without you,” Matt pointed out. He wasn’t wrong. Foggy knew he would not be able to stop him if Matt put up a fuss. His friend might be feeling out of sorts but Foggy was under no illusions that Matt couldn’t still easily overpower him if he wanted to.

“Yeah well you shouldn’t,” Foggy said, even as he got up to start getting ready to go. “You’re taking two more of these,” he told Matt handing over more cold pills.

“They’re not helping and they’re screwing me up,” Matt said, digging in his heels.

“You wanna guess what your temperature would be if you weren’t taking them?”

Matt grumbled but seemed to know he wasn’t winning this battle, throwing back the pills dry.

“And I am NOT going out with you in public with those stupid socks on,” Foggy said. “Do they even fit in your shoes?”

Matt disappeared into the bedroom, presumably in search of normal socks.

“You know they’re pink with little hearts on them, right?”

“Really?” Matt asked. 

“Ugh, no but they look extra stupid anyway. Don’t let anybody see you wearing them. Bad for your reputation.”

“As a lawyer or … ?”

“Both!” Foggy said, putting on his shoes. He’d let Matt go out with his messy bedhead if he wanted, cause Matt appeared to give zero fucks how he looked right now. But there had to be a line drawn somewhere.

“I don’t even know why you’ve always had a hate on for my comfy socks,” Matt said.

‘Cause its one of the safe things I can tease you mercilessly about without you taking it personally,’ Foggy thought. “I just don’t think any self respecting bad ass vigilante should be slinking around in fuzzy socks, that’s all.”

“You think I’m a bad ass?” Matt asked, looking all kinds of smug.

“Ugh!” Foggy said, lightly shoving Matt out the front door and trying really hard not to remember the terrifying, broom wielding devil he’d encountered several hours earlier.

………………………..

The graveyard was, not surprisingly, empty that night. Matt and Foggy sat on the ground on either side of Jack’s grave. Foggy had never been here before and was oddly touched Matt let him join. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled the bottle of scotch he’d lifted from Matt’s kitchen and opened it, pouring a splash on the ground between them. Matt nodded in approval. Foggy took a swig and passed the bottle to Matt who did the same before pouring a shots worth onto the ground over his father’s grave. They passed the bottle back and forth for a bit silently. Matt didn’t seem to need to say anything and Foggy followed his lead. After a few more passes he was starting to rethink the wisdom of this plan because Matt had eaten only a bagel today and was chucked full of cold pills. For as frequently as he drank, Matt had a surprisingly low alcohol tolerance. Thankfully he was usually careful to cut himself off but Foggy definitely didn’t relish the thought of getting Matt home if he went too far. And he certainly had not forgotten the mess Matt had become by over drinking on this day a couple years back. Giggling, drunk Matt was one thing to contend with. He really didn’t want to deal with getting his friend home if things went dark.

“Hey,” Foggy warned, tossing Matt a bag. It was caught effortlessly out of mid air which was definitely a good sign.

“What’s this?” Matt asked, feeling the bag. 

“You're not going to keep drinking on a empty stomach. I am not fit enough to carry you home.”

Matt smiled as he dug out a cookie. He offered the open bag to Foggy who declined.

Foggy kept drinking, Matt kept munching and the night silently crept on around them.

“Oh hey,” Matt said, pointing just over Foggy’s shoulder. Foggy tried not to feel creeped out cause yeah, dark cemetery at night. But Matt had not sounded at all alarmed so Foggy twisted around to see what he was getting at. 

A couple graves over was the biggest rat Foggy had ever seen. His first instinct was to get up and get the hell out of there before it came over and gave him rabies.

“Is that a small dog or a rat?” he asked Matt, watching as the enormous rodent sniffed its way around some cut flowers.

Matt tossed a cookie to the rat, perfect aim causing it to land directly in the rodent’s path. The rat happily snatched up his prize and trotted off, head thrust back to not trip over the cookie.

“Pizza rat,” Foggy said, thinking of a clip he’d seen online.

“Huh?”

“It reminds me of this this viral video a couple years back with this big rat dragging a huge slice of pizza,” he explained knowing Matt wasn’t exactly watching stupid online video clips in his spare time.

“You know oddly enough I did actually smell pizza on him.”

“That’s gross,” Foggy said, continuously amazed by Matt’s powers of perception.

“Maybe that really WAS the pizza rat.”

Foggy looked at Jack’s tombstone and wondered idly what the man would think of this conversation happening over his grave. He hoped the Jack would be happy his son was here, not alone and not lost in his own head in grief. He wished he could tell Jack that this was the first year Matt had not focused on blaming himself for his father’s death and even managed to share happy memories of his childhood. Maybe it would mean something to Matt’s dad to hear that.

And that maybe the man wouldn’t mind being visited by the pizza rat either.

…………………….

They made it back to Matt’s apartment without incident but he was definitely running on fumes by this point. 

“If you go change into lighter clothes I promise not to give you shit about blankets,” Foggy suggested. He was like 99% sure Matt wanted to cuddle into a blanket at this point and felt like a bit of a jerk for not letting him do that all day. It was just ridiculously hard to keep Matt from making himself overheat. He was pretty sure cuddling into blankets was only 50% about feeling cold and the rest was Matt trying desperately to sooth himself.

Rather than point out he could damn well do as he pleased, Matt tiredly said, “Deal,” and ducked into his bedroom. He came out with (finally!) no socks, a thin tee shirt and normal sweatpants. And also the blanket from his bed. There were times when Foggy beat himself mentally for not realizing Matt was Daredevil, for not recognizing what a dangerous and powerful man his friend was. He felt stupid for having not recognized it before Matt was bleeding out in front of him and couldn’t hide his secret any longer. And then there were times like this when Matt looked like the least threatening guy ever, hair astray, arms full of cozy blankets, expression totally open and relaxed. There was nothing about him that said strong/threatening/ass kicking vigilante when he was wrapping himself in fluffy blankets and snuggling up on the other end of the couch. He was like the living embodiment of those stupid fuzzy socks right now and, at times like these, Foggy totally gets how Matt managed to successfully hide such a huge part of who he is.

“Didn’t make it to Fogwells,” Matt said, sounding a little disappointed. Foggy had realized at least that portion of his ritual had not been fulfilled.

“Would you have felt up to beating on punching bags today?” he asked sincerely.

“Yeah, you’re right, not really,” Matt admitted, shivering under his blanket.

“And I do have an idea about that. Sort of,” Foggy said, leaning over the coffee table to boot up his laptop. He hoped this was a good idea and didn’t make things worse. Foggy felt like he’d been mostly successful today with his handling of Matt. It would be a shame to mess it up now.

Matt just peered towards him quizzically from his blanket cocoon.

“So I found something cool on Youtube,” he said, opening the saved bookmark.

“Is it pizza rat?”

“No.”

“You’re gonna narrate for me, right?” Matt asked knowing damn well Foggy always did when needed.

“Don’t even need to buddy,” he said, starting the video.

The picture quality was for shit, the sound was not a whole lot better. The video was very much pre-internet but somebody has deemed it worth of an upload. The announcer rousingly introduced the boxers for the match. Matt perked up as Battlin’ Jack Murdock as enthusiastically announced.

“Foggy, is this?”

“Yeah, somebody uploaded one of your dad’s old matches. I thought you might like to hear it,” he said, looking at Matt’s expression, really hoping this was well received.

Matt smiled, toothy and genuine, leaning closer to the laptop. “Wow,” he said, sounding delighted.

Every shot and blow was quickly and enthusiastically narrated by the announcer leaving Foggy free of his usual duties. He ignored the screen in favour of watching Matt’s rapt expression. Oh yes, this was definitely a good idea he thought settling back into the couch.

The video was long, contained several matches and wasn’t edited so the time between actual physical contact was filled with the announcer giving facts about the combatants, about other matches and so on. Foggy noticed Matt slowly inching closer to himself and the laptop. It took a good ten minutes for him to make to from the other end of the couch to close to where Foggy was. Matt was very much focused on what he was hearing but was still shivering and clutching the blanket to himself, obviously trying to get more comfort physically. ‘Come on Matt,’ he thought. ‘I know you really, really want cuddles here but if I offer it you’re gonna bolt,’ he thought.   
Matt had no skills to ask for comfort. Period. Foggy had a theory which he planned to share with Matt exactly never that the reason Matt slept with so many girls was he had no other way to show he needed physical comfort. Foggy really hopped Matt just wanted that much sex but he suspected it was just a means to an end and it made him just a little sad if he considered it too much. He’d always congratulated Matt and maybe lived just a little vicariously through his sexual exploits, but once the idea popped into his head that Matt had maybe been whoring himself out just to get a little comfort it made him really feel badly about the whole thing. Although maybe those days were behind him now. Matt had not mentioned even one hook up since returning from the dead. Foggy didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.

‘Come on Matt, you know I’m not gonna reject you, I’m not going to make fun of you, just get over here and make yourself happy for once,’ he thought as Matt fractionally squirmed and inched closer, like maybe if he did it slowly enough Foggy wouldn’t notice. Foggy watched the grainy video clip, afraid to even look at Matt. It was like feeding a wild deer - he didn’t even risk looking over for fear of scaring him away. 

Finally, after what had to be fifteen minutes of the slowest, most hesitant inching ever, Matt finally committed. He was a lot of things but a coward wasn’t one of them Foggy knew. With one final squirming motion Matt curled up against Foggy, laying his head down on Foggy’s chest. He was so tense he vibrated against him. Foggy pulled his arm free and put it around Matt pulling him closer. Slowly, by degrees Matt’s muscles loosened. The shivering didn’t stop and it was hard to tell if that was from the fever or nerves by this point. Matt very slowly curled his arm around Fogy’s stomach and went limp against him. 

'Finally,' Foggy thought. He was pretty sure Matt had been trying to work himself up to this all day. He didn’t take it personally that Matt couldn’t have just asked for it and knows he would never in a million years have said no. It wasn’t Matt's had such a hard time going about getting something so simple. Still, Foggy wished he’d somehow been able to let his best friend know he was always available for simple cuddles. It didn’t have to be because Matt was feeling like all kinds of crap on multiple levels today. Foggy was a warm, squishy and cuddly guy. He’d never have rock abs like Matt but he knew the one advantage of rocking a couple extra pounds was it he made for a warm, soft body to snuggle up against. He always liked squashing against another person, sharing body heat and comfort. It just wasn’t a big deal in his family, in his friendships, in his relationships. He’d always respected Matt’s space but he’d just never had the same issues around this, hugging came naturally to him, snuggling up to someone else to watch tv was like second nature. And he’d just never been able to get any of this through to his best friend. He tried not to think of it as a friendship failure but until just now he’d never managed to get Matt closer than a quick perfunctory hug.

“Thanks Foggy,” Matt said, sleepily. “Um, for everything today. It means a lot. It means a lot to me.”

He just gave Matt a squeeze, didn’t seem like the time for words. He pulled out his phone, changed the alarm from manual setting to auto reset every year. He watched the old video on his laptop, felt the warmth against his side and hoped he’d done his best for Matt today.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one was just suppose to be a little, self contained one shot to ease me back into posting fic after a nine year absence. Somehow, it kept getting added to and now its become the first fic in a series (Flipping Turtles follows this story and Working Vacation after that).


End file.
